I could never stand Best Buy...just personal experience but their customer service and sales environment was crap. FutureShop always gave me more positive vibes, and most of the time their sales reps were a lot friendlier. Granted, I tended to buy more from Staples anyway, but still sad to see Future Shop go...

Just last year, an Internet company near where I live had a television commercial where they were offering Internet service with speeds of "50 millibytes per second" (spoken out loud in the commercial). The promptly resulted in a face palm from myself.

The comics are supposed to be for amusement. Yes, Science/Logic are used for that effect, but XKCD isn't trying to be a peer reviewed journal. They don't need to accurate as long as they are accurate enough to achieve a humorous effect.
I thought 1235 was quite amusing. The XKCD Sucks critique on 1235 is weak, at best. Being smug is part of the humour. He even says the comic is good for the most part but complained the caption text was on the bottom. I have absolutely no idea what difference that's supposed to make. I get that everybody has a different sense of humour but I don't see comments like that as worthwhile critiques.

My first ever trip to the US (back in 2010), I was asked to power on my laptop going through security. In fact, while researching the trip IIRC the airline website even called this out as a specific to precaution to make sure your devices were charged in case you were asked to prove they worked.
I wasn't asked on my second and third trips, so it must have only been sporadic ("additional screening" type thing). I would definitely be a bit time consuming to check all devices for all passengers, if that is the intent.

time_lords_almanac writes: BlackBerry is trying to put the kibosh on the Typo, a physical keyboard attachment for iPhone. And they've won the first round, in the form of a sales ban on the attachment. Their website so far makes no reference of the sales ban, but still seems to be accepting orders.

time_lords_almanac writes: A video has recently gone viral, purportedly showing a real life hoverboard. The video itself is quite impressive, featuring well done effects, and cameos from Christopher Lloyd and Tony Hawk (a shorter video features Billy Zane from Back To The Future as well). There's even an accompanying website compete with an endorsement from entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

Now, before you let your brain leave you and actually get excited about this, various sites have already sprung up to debunk this. But the question remains: why? Could this be a teaser for a Back to the Future Part 4? A hoverboard-based video game? Or is Funny Or Die just trying to tug on the heart strings of futuristic technology lovers everywhere?

Since Apple likes to believe they should have control over what software we are allowed our mobile devices, does that mean If they made cars, they would belIeve they should have control over what roads we can and can't drive on?

Submitted
by
time_lords_almanac
on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @08:53PM

time_lords_almanac writes: A Canadian band has sent an invoice to the U.S. Department of Defense after learning that its music was used without permission in "interrogations" of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The members of Skinny Puppy, who specialize in electronic music, were originally going to make the invoice the cover of their next album until they discovered they could bring legal action against the department. They were also none to happy to learn the purpose their music was being employed for, let alone illegally. The amount of compensation requested? $666,000, of course.